Did HBK know he was eventually going to wrestle when he returned in 2002?

[HatchetMan84]

Everyone knows the exact timing of *when* HBK decided to come back to the WWF, and everyone knows about his eventual wrestling comeback, but i'm asking do you think Shawn knew in the back of his mind that he was going to end up wrestling again.

I think that he genuinely did not intend on wrestling again, but rather he figured on being a key WWF feature for a while. I say this based on the fact that he sold his company / wrestling school. I wonder if once the NWO storyline finished up, if Kevin Nash never got hurt, would HBK have still wrestled, and would he instead have settled into some kind of backstage / office role.

I read his book and he said when Kevin Nash went down with his injury, there was a part of himself inside that knew now was the time to come back, he compared it to a story in the bible that basically called him to be a strong leader in someone else's absence.

I still wonder if Vince approached HBK about wrestling again or did he go to Vince and tell him he felt like he was ready to come back....

 

[Matty~!]

I've heard cynical stories of his back injury in 1998 not being as bad as he made it out to be, there are for lack of a better term 'conspiracy' theories that he wanted to the ride out the wave of Austin's popularity and come back to reclaim his old spot. Which if these theories are true is pretty accurate to what happened.

Personally I'd rather not believe it because when he came back he was as good as if not even better than before. I think he had probably got to the point where he wanted to leave a legacy, that wasn't the one ending at Wrestlemania XIV and was prepared to risk his back in the process to do so.

I doubt it was his intention to wrestle when he came in as part of the nWo, once that went south though like he said in his book had to replace Nash in the storyline and it was basically a favour to a friend when all was said and done.

 

[Irishock]

From what I've read, Hunter asked Vince to bring Shawn back to the ring in '01, Shawn drugged out in Cleveland and Vince fired him. He didn't talk to Hunter for an entire year until he became a born-again Christian. Then, Vince discussed an idea where HBK would join the nWo, and it'd eventually end up with a street fight, HBK vs Vince, 1 on 1. Hunter said fuck that, go with Hunter and Shawn instead. Shawn felt fine after the match and kept coming back for more.

 

[Kris Benwa]

^That's pretty accurate HHH mentions it in his first DVD it was only supposed to be the one Street Fight but like he said he felt good after the match and decided to keep wrestling also so that his kids could see him.

 

[Rhodes2TheFuture3313]

I hate to be that guy, but it was a privilege and an honor to see HBK return to the ring as well as witness his WHC victory at Survivor Series. HBK gave us 8 awesome years of entertainment that we weren't supposed to get. I think Shawn really enjoyed his second run more because he was already an established star and didn't have to be "The top guy" or fight for his spot. It's a shame we never got to see HBK/ROCK at WM nor a HBK/Austin re-match. His return gave him an opportunity to leave the business his own way. Some aren't afforded that luxury i.e. Edge.

 

[thebarber]

of course he did, he wrestled Paul Diamond in 2001 at his Wrestling Academy in a match. Shawn was always coming back, he suggested to do him vs Vince, Vince himself suggested he feud with HHH at Summerslam 2002. Read hios book, he tells the world his intentions at the time

 

[Wald]

I'm sure there was a part of HBK that wanted to get back alright, obviously it depended on how he came through his match with Triple H at Summerslam though.

HBK pretty much needed to come back to reclaim a legacy. I was the perfect age to grow up with HBK and by the time his WWF career ended in 1998 he had pretty much thrashed people's memories of him. I remember him being this amazing athlete in the Rockers, being a fantastic IC champion with bags of potential and I pretty much didn't even mind him beating my favourite at Wrestlemania 12 for the title, he was so good it was obvious he needed a run with the top belt.

His face run as champion was a complete disaster though, his hissy fit in Madison Square garden at Survivor Series 1996 highlighting why people had turned on him. The whole 'losing my smile' thing wasn't bought by anyone and really soured even my HBK loving friends on him. It was massively obvious to us even in the pre-IWC days that he had faked the injury to get out of losing to Bret.

His increased unprofessionalism is actually astounding to think back on now. I remember one Raw in the build up to Survivor Series 1997 where he was clearly drunk or drugged up and started rambling about Triple H pinning Bret on the previous week's Raw, something which hadn't happened. You could see on everyone from Triple H to Bret's face that they didn't know what to do with him. The Montreal Screwjob was the final nail in the coffin for him as a respected performer at the time. People remembered him as throwing away his talent more than having it.

Thankfully he got his life sorted out and came back and showed every how good we all knew he could be. He really hit massive heights in his second run and rightly has gone down as one of the all time greats.

 

[Hollywood Naitch]

His return to the ring was going to be a one-night-only thing, against Vince McMahon in a street fight, but Triple H went to Vince and said 'I'm better than you in the ring, why doesn't Shawn wrestle me?", which is why the match was between HBK and HHH.

After the match, Shawn went home cut his hair off and ate a shit load of junk food, before getting the call to wrestle in the Elimination Chamber where he won the World Heavyweight Title. His first response was "What?! I'm out of shape, I've cut my hair, I've no ring gear!" but he decided to go ahead with the match, which is why he has those horrible half-finished brown tights on in the match, has a terrible haircut and isn't in great shape.

After the match and feeling ok, Shawn decided to come back full time and I am very glad he did. His in-ring work was just as good, arguably better than during his first run, and his new found faith resulted in him being a much better person backstage and helping out alot of the younger talent. The ego was gone, he just seemed to be happy to perform and he gave us many more great matches such as vs Jericho at WrestleMania, Kurt Angle, Ric Flair and The Undertaker.

He will go down as one of the all-time greatest in-ring performers...and rightly so.

 

[MCMG]

I'm very thankful that he did return. HBK put on some incredible matches after his return, most notably at WM. I always wonder what if he didn't get injured. Would he have been tempted by WCW. I mean his best friend was pretty much running the place and he would have earned whatever he wants. Remember, he wasn't the same HBK we see now, he was a vastly different person, far more juvenile.

I'd suspect that Triple H twisted his arm and made him come out of retirement and the rest is history. I personally don't think that returning to the WWE was necessarily his goal but that is what happened. It is a real shame we never got to see HBK feud with The Rock and, in my opinion, that his the greatest feud that never happened.

So no, his return kinda just happened but if WCW was still around and doing well it may have been very different.

 

[HBsam31]

I am sure HBK never fully closed the book on wrestling when he was out, but who knows if he actually knew or not. What I wonder is if he hadn't been out those years would he still have had the gas in the tank to give us the incredible matches he did once he returned. HBK has always been my favorite and I was not happy when he left, but looking back it was the best thing that could have happened for him, and for us the fans given he came back and did what he did in the ring. Like I said though, he probably had an idea that he was going to come back someday, but who knows.

 

[theHeadliner]

According to his book and DVD he was just supposed to come back as a mouthpiece role and didn't plan on wrestling, but he eventually started getting creative ideas involving him wrestling. First it was gonna be a one-off with Vince, but HHH chimed in and said he should wrestle Shawn instead. Shawn looked pretty fit and in good shape when he returned to the now in 2002. Someone mentioned he wrestled a match in his Texas company so I'm sure the idea was in the back of his head.

 

[THTRobtaylor]

There's always gonna be conjecture and with the state Shawn was in for much of his adult life I doubt even he knows exactly what was going on at times.

I am sure he knew he might wrestle at some point when he came back in 01, but was still clearly having issues. He had been around when other guys who were "retired" with similar injuries came back like Perfect and Animal, so he'd have known if they could do it he probably could and would have to to get the money.

There are two types of this, the guys who were out cos their injuries retired them or those who could claim large Lloyds of London policies that would make them more than wrestling which kept them out as long as possible. Perfect and Animal were the latter, Steamboat and Rick Rude the former - although even Rude was training for a WWE return as his spine had improved when he died and Ricky S. found after 20 years that he could work enough for those Jericho matches... time does heal all wounds.

Shawn was probably somewhere in the latter, but Lloyds got wise to a lot of wrestlers and stopped payouts for returning to the company at all onscreen - not just matches as they'd had their famous issues financially and been burned by a lot of guys abusing the policies like Hennig, who was a wrestler to all intents and purposes while with Flair, still physically involved but just not wrestling "a match" which the policy covered. Bret alludes to the tightened rules in his book after his concussion ended his career. If he was going back at all, Lloyds weren't paying out anymore - so the only way to make the cash level was to wrestle. The HBK of the later on JBL angle or Big Show story of today could well have been 2001-2002 Shawn for real.